Three-year jail term for sex assault on student’s friend

The man standing trial for sexually assaulting a college friend of Irishwoman Nicola Furlong was sentenced to three years with labour, with the presiding judge Masayuki Yamada saying the assault had been carried out to fulfil a “desire”.

LA dancer James Blackston, 23, was accused of assaulting Ms Furlong’s unidentified friend on the same night last May that Ms Furlong was found strangled in a Tokyo hotel.

He was also charged with assaulting a Japanese-Brazilian woman a month earlier in Kofu, about 100km west of Tokyo.